Sometimes life can seem so incredibly different than the way we planned it to go.
A wise uncle of mine once said something that was simple but profound. It took years for the statement to sit and be processed and I am still processing it 17 years after hearing it for the first time. In paraphrasing his wisdom that was shared, he said that:
What I’d have done at age 16, would affect the guy I became at age 17, and that what I did at age 17 would affect who I became at age 18 and so on…
The statement seemed too simple to even make sense sometimes, until you’re years down the road and you then realize that if you weren’t smart about building the right foundation at that early age, you could easily be caught in your 30s, 40s or 50s, wondering what went wrong!
I’m so grateful for every blessing God has brought me in my lifetime. I am blessed to have a beautiful wife and a wonderful new baby girl. But I’m a little behind my goals for the ‘day I became a dad’, and I’m left wondering, ‘did I do it the way I should have’?
I believe that I’ve worked really hard towards my goals of being happy, spiritually balanced, married, a father and financially free at 30. I made some good decisions that put me ahead of schedule on some things and made some ill advised ones too that brought me back below the mark.
As hard as I’ve worked and still am working, I’ve got this feeling of not being satisfied now. For the most part, I’m happily married, growing spiritually, but not financially where I wanted to be. And now I’m left wondering if my feelings of disappointment towards my financial placing are just the fuel I need to keep chasing towards my finish line. Or could I one day get to the goal of financial freedom, and realize that the financial freedom was a false positive?
Should I be content and happy with the blessings around me and not be as determined towards achievement of money and material pleasures? How much is too much?
I don’t have any answers to these questions, and I’m hoping that I’ll continue to use the wisdom and experiences I’ve got, to chart the ‘right’ course.
As I was thinking this over though, I’m left thinking of something my pastor recently said, mentioning that the devil wants us to focus on our failures and will keep us often looking at the mistakes we’d made. The easiest thing we can do is to get back on the course of what was working and continue to work towards our goals, whatever they might be.
Have a blessed day!
Cheers
Stephen
Photo by Daniel De Nadai on Unsplash